The Center for Trait-Based Transformation

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Campbellsville, KY
The Center for Trait-Based Transformation

Through this transformation, individuals are empowered and motivated.

The core principle of our approach is to assist those facing substance use disorder and other life-controlling issues in recognizing and harnessing their inner strength and self-worth.

11/27/2025

Thanksgiving Reflections from The Center for Trait-Based Transformation

For many, today is a table filled with warmth, laughter, and familiar comfort.
For others, the holidays bring a different kind of weight like old patterns, tender memories, complicated family dynamics, or the quiet ache of wanting the day to feel easier than it does.

Wherever this Thanksgiving finds you, we want you to know this:

Your strengths travel with you!

Your Self-Awareness helps you notice what you’re feeling.
Your Emotional Intelligence guides you in responding with compassion.
Your Resiliency reminds you that you’ve made it through hard moments before — and you will again.
And your Authenticity gives you permission to show up today in a way that honors who you really are.

Whether your holiday is peaceful, messy, joyful, bittersweet, or a mixture of it all, you are not alone on the journey. You carry powerful traits within you! You possess traits that can steady the heart, soften the day, and help you choose the next right thing.

From all of us at The Center for Trait-Based Transformation, we’re grateful for you.
For your growth.
For your courage.
For the way you keep showing up — for yourself and for your world.

Wishing you a warm, grounded, strength-filled Thanksgiving.
Start from Strength. 🧡

11/26/2025

We are pleased to announce the 2025–2026 pilot partners for Strength Spark, our identity-centered digital support tool integrated with the Trait-Based Model of Prevention and Recovery.

This multi-state pilot brings together innovative leaders across education, behavioral health, community recovery, and justice-involved populations:

• Bridges Alternative Group — Seattle, WA
Operates Seattle’s only recovery high school and provides a comprehensive 12-month support program for teens and families rebuilding life in recovery.

• Albuquerque District Attorney’s Office — New Mexico
Offers adults an alternative to traditional prosecution through a pretrial diversion pathway where charges can be dismissed or expunged upon successful completion of the Trait-Based program.

• McKinley Academy — Manitowoc, WI
A public recovery high school supporting academic success, emotional healing, and long-term recovery for students in recovery.

• Serenity House — Inez, KY
A residential program serving pregnant and parenting women with compassionate, family-centered care in recovery.

• Revive Life House — Nicholasville, KY
A men’s residential treatment program focused on identity development, leadership, and sustainable recovery.

• All Together Recovery — Danville, KY
A structured residential program helping men rebuild identity, stability, and purpose through community-based support.

This pilot is significant because Strength Spark offers an identity-centered layer of support that individuals can access privately, anytime. It helps people understand their traits, regulate emotions, and find grounding in moments that often determine whether someone moves forward or falls back. By bridging the space between sessions, schools, homes, and court appointments, Strength Spark provides continuity of support when people need it most.

We are deeply thankful for these partners and their commitment to courage, innovation, and care. It’s an honor to collaborate with leaders who believe in the power of identity and resilience.

Start from Strength.

11/25/2025

We wanted to share something encouraging from our work with Garrard County Schools.

We reviewed the Trait-Based Prevention engagement data this week, and the results were stunning. All 390 students have logged into the Trait-Based platform. That is a 100 percent login rate. Most prevention curricula see nearly zero voluntary engagement outside class.

Even more meaningful, 31 percent of students have already begun completing lessons on their own. Several are far ahead of schedule for this point in the school year. This is happening outside the Monday classroom lesson, on their own time, simply because the content matters to them.

Trait-Based Prevention resonates because it speaks to identity, emotional intelligence, and internal strengths. Students recognize themselves in it, and they continue exploring because it helps them understand who they are and who they can become.

Here is the engagement snapshot from Garrard County. I’m grateful for these students and for the opportunity to walk this journey with them.

Start from Strength.

11/22/2025

Across campuses nationwide, students are quietly battling substance use, anxiety, and depression…often in silence, often alone. And too many are left believing they must pause their education to get help!

The Trait-Based Models of Prevention & Recovery can change that.

This innovative, research-backed model gives colleges and universities a new path—one that is …

✅ Fully Online & Self-Paced
Students can engage anytime, anywhere and on their schedule. No disruption to classes, no missed credits, no impossible choices.

✅ Easy to Implement
The curriculum integrates seamlessly into existing campus systems with no specialized staffing, no brick-and-mortar programming, no heavy lift. Schools can launch quickly and scale effortlessly.

✅ Accessible & Inclusive
Every student deserves support. This model meets them where they are. They’ll have digital access, strengths-based language, and ZERO stigma.

✅ Proven to Improve wellbeing
Early outcomes show reductions in anxiety and depression and improvements in self-image, emotional intelligence, and resilience, all which are key predictors of academic success and long-term recovery.

✅ Built for Both Prevention and Treatment
Whether a student is at risk, in early struggle, or already seeking recovery, Trait-Based programming provides practical tools rooted in identity, motivation, and personal strengths—not fear, shame, or punishment.

When students don’t have to choose between healing and higher learning, retention rises. Supporting student well-being isn’t just compassionate,
it’s visionary leadership because the future of campus mental health is flexible, digital, strengths-focused, and student-centered.

Universities have an unprecedented opportunity:
Be the campus that doesn’t just say “We care.” Be the campus that makes care accessible.

Start from Strength.
Grow from Strength.
Graduate from Strength.

www.startfromstrength.org

11/21/2025

Big news to share.

The Center for Trait-Based Transformation has officially been approved as a NAADAC Tier A and Distance Learning Education Provider through 2027.

This means our Trait-Based Recovery and Trait-Based Prevention programs, along with our upcoming Strength Spark governance trainings, can now award nationally recognized Continuing Education hours to clinicians, peer support specialists, counselors, educators, and leaders across the country.

This recognition is more than a credential. It affirms the quality, integrity, and transformational impact of a framework that was created in Kentucky and is now expanding nationally through research, prevention, recovery, and leadership pathways.

To everyone who has supported this work, thank you. The next chapter is going to be extraordinary.

11/20/2025

Rethinking Prevention: Start from Strength, Not Fear!

The Trait-Based Model of Prevention is changing the way communities approach the youth and it’s doing it without fear tactics, scare-based messaging, or the old “just say no” mantra.

Instead of focusing on what students should avoid, we focus on who they ARE.

When young people learn to work from their core traits like empathy, emotional intelligence, motivation, authenticity, and resiliency, they naturally make stronger choices because those choices align with who they are becoming. Prevention becomes internal, not external. Empowering, not intimidating.

This model replaces fear with self-awareness, compliance with curiosity, and pressure with personal agency — and the results are already speaking for themselves!

Early data from schools using the Trait-Based Model show:

• Decreased levels of anxiety and depression
• Measurable improvements in self-image
• Higher engagement and healthier decision-making patterns

And with the addition of Strength Spark, our AI companion that helps students understand their traits and build language around their strengths, these insights are becoming even more accessible while meeting youth right where they are, in real time!

The future of prevention isn’t about telling kids what not to do.

It’s about helping them remember who they already are, and giving them the tools to live from that strength.

Are you ready for the trait-based difference? Let’s do this!

11/19/2025

Big news today! 🎉

McKinley Academy in Manitowoc, Wisconsin is the first school in the entire nation to launch Strength Spark.

Strength Spark is our new digital reflection companion built from the Trait-Based Framework, and the first digital tool of its kind to be used in school-based drug education and prevention. Students at McKinley will engage in brief, private check-ins that help build emotional intelligence, identity, resilience, and balance, all in under a minute a day.

We are honored to partner with Principal Stephanie Boncher and the amazing team at McKinley Academy. This is a huge moment for Strength Spark and an exciting step forward for youth wellbeing and prevention work.

💚 Thank you to everyone who believes in this mission.
We are just getting started.

11/18/2025

When Recovery Meets Identity, the Outcomes Speak for Themselves!!!

For years, we’ve watched people cycle through the same programs again and again…good people, committed people…yet discouraged because nothing felt built for them.

What happens when we flip the script?
When we start from who someone is, not what they’ve done?
When we build recovery on identity, traits, strengths, and internal restoration?

Here’s what happens:

✨ Engagement skyrockets.

Trait-Based participants showed a 97.1% engagement rate, far outpacing widely used models like DBT (88%), Living in Balance (84%), and 12-Step Facilitation (82%).

✨ Retention stays strong.

We’re seeing 97.1% retention—the highest of all models analyzed—highlighting a simple truth:
People stay when they feel seen.

✨ Effectiveness rises.

Overall effectiveness reached 84.3%, surpassing SMART Recovery, DBT, Hazelden materials, and traditional 12-Step Facilitation.

This isn’t anecdotal.
This isn’t wishful.
This is peer-reviewed, published evidence in a Nature Portfolio journal.

Because at the heart of it all is a simple belief:

When people reconnect with who they truly are, they RISE.
And when they rise, recovery becomes not just possible—but personal.

If our field is ready for innovation that honors both science and the soul, we believe this is the way forward.

11/17/2025

Did you know the Trait Based Model of Recovery is now one of the few recovery approaches in the country with peer reviewed evidence published in the Nature portfolio?

I wanted to share a few of the core outcome metrics we have been studying over the past several years. These three visuals compare engagement, retention, and overall effectiveness between the Trait Based Model and several widely used traditional models of care. The findings are encouraging. When clients reconnect with who they are and begin working from their core strengths, the outcomes speak for themselves.

What I appreciate most is that the data is not anecdotal or aspirational. It is measured, transparent, and now published in a world class scientific journal. Many models claim to have the highest engagement or the strongest results. Very few share the evidence behind those statements. I believe the field deserves both innovation and honesty, and I am grateful we can contribute to that.

My hope is that this work helps more people heal, more teams find an approach that empowers rather than labels, and more organizations discover what is possible when we build recovery on identity, traits, and internal restoration.

Sources:
Project MATCH Research Group (1997); Linehan et al. (2006); Bohus et al. (2004); Harned et al. (2008); Ames et al. (2020); Ferri et al. (2021); SAMHSA/NREPP (Living in Balance Program Profile, archived); Little and Robinson (1988) on Moral Reconation Therapy; Hazelden Foundation and NIDA (Residential Model Outcomes); Roop et al. (2024), Scientific Reports (Nature Portfolio).

Always, Start from Strength.

11/17/2025

A new kind of digital companion for youth and adults in prevention and recovery.

Launching soon.

11/15/2025

Introducing the Tree of Traits.

Most recovery models focus on behavior modification or cognitive reframing. Those approaches can be helpful, but they often stay at the surface of the human experience.

Trait-Based Recovery goes deeper.

The Tree of Traits captures what it means to be human. It makes recovery experiential. It reconnects individuals to the traits they already have within them, traits that often get buried under years of survival, shame, or struggle.

GRIT helps us endure.
GRACE helps us connect.
BALANCE helps us come home to ourselves.

And at the center of it all is self-awareness, the foundational trait that makes transformation possible.

Recovery is not about changing who we are. It is about remembering who we are. It is about reconnecting to the creativity, authenticity, emotional intelligence, and inner clarity that have always been there.

This is the Tree of Traits.
This is the heart of Trait-Based Recovery.

www.StartfromStrength.org

Address

20 Anniston Trail
Campbellsville, KY
42718

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+12704695508

Website

http://www.startfromstrength.org/

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